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WHY CAN'T I JUST POISON HIM A LITTLE BIT!?
Posts
Craze
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CloseHi. My name is Craze, and I want to inflict status effects on your bosses.
Can I do this in your game? If not, why? If so, which effects? How can you do better? How can you actually grow up out of boring game design "RPGs are supposed to be like this" mechanics?
Can I do this in your game? If not, why? If so, which effects? How can you do better? How can you actually grow up out of boring game design "RPGs are supposed to be like this" mechanics?
That's good to hear, since you only play the bad ones (you seek them out like a thirteen-year-old animu freak seeks out 100% Legions just to give them poor reviews, after all).
What states do you have, then, F-G? I know you have your basic stat debuffs since you're obsessed with witty/not-so-witty one-liners for them, but...!
To elaborate further, I've seen some games let even make it so that bosses suffer a lesser effect/shorter duration for some effects. It's not as strong an effect as what regular enemies, but you can still hit the boss with it. People are taking these things into account.
Personally, I think status effects should be a fully viable way of dealing with bosses. If a boss is a savage physical attacker, shouldn't blinding him be a highly attractive option? Why arbitrarily just say "DOESN'T WORK." Why punish the player for trying something other than damage, damage damage? If the player actually thinks "you know if I reduced that enemy's chance of hitting me with his godly attacks, it would really help me out," shouldn't he be allowed to act on this deduction? Poison is something of another matter since by default it saps away huge amounts of health in XP/VX and not everyone has the scripting knowledge to fix this, but there are ways around it.
I don't mind some enemies being immune to some status effects. But a sin of many commercial games is that by half way in, all enemies are immune to everything, always. That is why one of my favorite games is FFT. Not only do status effects work, they can be highly effective.
Personally, I think status effects should be a fully viable way of dealing with bosses. If a boss is a savage physical attacker, shouldn't blinding him be a highly attractive option? Why arbitrarily just say "DOESN'T WORK." Why punish the player for trying something other than damage, damage damage? If the player actually thinks "you know if I reduced that enemy's chance of hitting me with his godly attacks, it would really help me out," shouldn't he be allowed to act on this deduction? Poison is something of another matter since by default it saps away huge amounts of health in XP/VX and not everyone has the scripting knowledge to fix this, but there are ways around it.
I don't mind some enemies being immune to some status effects. But a sin of many commercial games is that by half way in, all enemies are immune to everything, always. That is why one of my favorite games is FFT. Not only do status effects work, they can be highly effective.
I treat every boss just like every other enemy. If that (loosely defined) enemy type is resistant to, say, sleep, a boss of that type will also resist sleep. Fighting the lowly monsters should teach you some insight on how to defeat that quest's big bad.
One exception I make is that I typically make bosses immune/highly resistant to instant death attacks.
One exception I make is that I typically make bosses immune/highly resistant to instant death attacks.
I like having two sets. I've seen similar things - like a stun that only works on undead - but not two entirely different sets of effects. Well, different in name/skill that inflicts them, anyway.
Drakonais
2787
I use 4 status afflictions (Poison, Blind, Stun, and Silence) and 4 stat debuffs, one for each stat. Stat debuffs effect everything 100%, all bosses included. The afflictions all have a chance to not work on all enemies, but bosses have an even higher resistance (except for poison, for the reason Soli mentioned).
It makes sense from a strategy perspective because if stunning a boss is as easy as stunning a regular enemy, you'd have him paralyzed for the entire battle. As you should. I expect people who play my game to take every tactical advantage I give to them, and making it harder to inflict statuses on bosses makes it balance out.
There's definitely a middle ground here. To those who are hesitant to let their bosses be afflicted by statuses at all, you might consider simply adding a ailment heal spell to a boss's skill set. They're usually smart enough to use it when they need it. And if a player is wise enough to silence them and then use statuses, well... they probably deserve the advantage.
It makes sense from a strategy perspective because if stunning a boss is as easy as stunning a regular enemy, you'd have him paralyzed for the entire battle. As you should. I expect people who play my game to take every tactical advantage I give to them, and making it harder to inflict statuses on bosses makes it balance out.
There's definitely a middle ground here. To those who are hesitant to let their bosses be afflicted by statuses at all, you might consider simply adding a ailment heal spell to a boss's skill set. They're usually smart enough to use it when they need it. And if a player is wise enough to silence them and then use statuses, well... they probably deserve the advantage.
TDS
1453
I like states so I decided to modify the way enemies are affected by them.
I did this by creating state tiers and switching the normal state resistance into state duration.
Example:
Poison Tier I (0 to 20 Intelligence) 3 turns 10% HP reduction
Poison Tier II (21 to 40 Intelligence) 4 turns 20% HP reduction
Poison Tier III (41 and up Intelligence) 5 turns 30% HP reduction
The power of poison and it's duration it's completely based off the stats of the player. It will always land so it had to be balanced by modifying state resistance into state duration modifiers.
0% resistance to poison means that the state will last the full duration.
50% Resistance means it will last half the turns of it's tier.
-50% Resistance means it will last twice as long as the turns of it's tier.
100% State will wear off very quickly, usually on the next turn.
So even if a boss has a resistance to a state you can at least inflict a state for a few turns.
Other states are affected by other stats as well and have different effects on their tiers.
I did this by creating state tiers and switching the normal state resistance into state duration.
Example:
Poison Tier I (0 to 20 Intelligence) 3 turns 10% HP reduction
Poison Tier II (21 to 40 Intelligence) 4 turns 20% HP reduction
Poison Tier III (41 and up Intelligence) 5 turns 30% HP reduction
The power of poison and it's duration it's completely based off the stats of the player. It will always land so it had to be balanced by modifying state resistance into state duration modifiers.
0% resistance to poison means that the state will last the full duration.
50% Resistance means it will last half the turns of it's tier.
-50% Resistance means it will last twice as long as the turns of it's tier.
100% State will wear off very quickly, usually on the next turn.
So even if a boss has a resistance to a state you can at least inflict a state for a few turns.
Other states are affected by other stats as well and have different effects on their tiers.
Tonfa
150
I like status effects, and designing bosses in such a way that they will be an attractive option. Usually I use the scale of inverse deadliness to figure out which immunities to leave unchecked - mildly inconveniencing/somewhat helpful states will likely be effective, while more severe effects are on case-by-case basis and what equates to complete battle skips will be rare. (But exist ~ I do love the FF5 design philosophy)
There's been a little trending towards having a status effect deal a different effect based on whether it's used on PCs or enemies, or randoms or bosses. I'm not a fan of it - I feel horribly gypped when I land a poison on a boss only to have it take off a measly 1% HP when it was taking a quarter off everything else, even if it's sound balance-wise. Just feels like the game is cheating its own defined ruleset, y'know? ('specially since the status effects menu often mentions only the most severe effect)
There's been a little trending towards having a status effect deal a different effect based on whether it's used on PCs or enemies, or randoms or bosses. I'm not a fan of it - I feel horribly gypped when I land a poison on a boss only to have it take off a measly 1% HP when it was taking a quarter off everything else, even if it's sound balance-wise. Just feels like the game is cheating its own defined ruleset, y'know? ('specially since the status effects menu often mentions only the most severe effect)
post=141443
- I feel horribly gypped when I land a poison on a boss only to have it take off a measly 1% HP when it was taking a quarter off everything else, even if it's sound balance-wise. Just feels like the game is cheating its own defined ruleset, y'know? ('specially since the status effects menu often mentions only the most severe effect)
Solution: stat-based degen damage.
More 'changing the rules' than cheating, IMO. Yeah, it's a pretty thin line and I agree that either way it's a load of bull (yeah I did it in DG :(, I think it was 5%->2% for bosses )
I think the main issue comes from how overpowered status effects are when they can target every opposing combatant. Most of the tough regular enemies tend to be those who can do something like zap the party with sleep or something equally debilitating. If you could do that to a solo boss or the enemy group is too incompetent to heal themselves, status effect can become a game breaker. I think making status effects less powerful and irresistible is one way of making them more useful since it's no longer a question of "Will it work?" but "Is it useful here?". Maybe have a way to overcome status resistances, ex: A mage enemy who has a ring for immunity to silence. A theif could steal the ring making the mage vulnerable to silence which can shut him down (and you get loot in the process).
I think the main issue comes from how overpowered status effects are when they can target every opposing combatant. Most of the tough regular enemies tend to be those who can do something like zap the party with sleep or something equally debilitating. If you could do that to a solo boss or the enemy group is too incompetent to heal themselves, status effect can become a game breaker. I think making status effects less powerful and irresistible is one way of making them more useful since it's no longer a question of "Will it work?" but "Is it useful here?". Maybe have a way to overcome status resistances, ex: A mage enemy who has a ring for immunity to silence. A theif could steal the ring making the mage vulnerable to silence which can shut him down (and you get loot in the process).
Tonfa
150
DEMONS GATE had a pretty hilarious curve of threatening enemies actually.
- Area 2: Big damage, or a status effect.
- Area 3: Bigger damage, or MT status effects
- Area 4: jesus christ they're overkilling me
- Area 5: Now I'm taking 94368765489 damage to all and eating doomed status at the same time
- Later in Area 5: Even those guys are scrubs
There's an issue to this where it's a fine line between making it less game breaking and too out of the way to even have it worth bothering with. The mage enemy mentioned in the example would need both outstanding threat value and durability to make silence better than nuking it to the ground with massive damage.
- Area 2: Big damage, or a status effect.
- Area 3: Bigger damage, or MT status effects
- Area 4: jesus christ they're overkilling me
- Area 5: Now I'm taking 94368765489 damage to all and eating doomed status at the same time
- Later in Area 5: Even those guys are scrubs
post=141446
I think making status effects less powerful and irresistible is one way of making them more useful since it's no longer a question of "Will it work?" but "Is it useful here?". Maybe have a way to overcome status resistances, ex: A mage enemy who has a ring for immunity to silence. A theif could steal the ring making the mage vulnerable to silence which can shut him down (and you get loot in the process).
There's an issue to this where it's a fine line between making it less game breaking and too out of the way to even have it worth bothering with. The mage enemy mentioned in the example would need both outstanding threat value and durability to make silence better than nuking it to the ground with massive damage.
post=141415
That's good to hear, since you only play the bad ones (you seek them out like a thirteen-year-old animu freak seeks out 100% Legions just to give them poor reviews, after all).
I don't even know what this means.
Let's see...conventional RPG wisdom says bosses should be INVULNERABLE to status effects. This is for good reason, as a Poison attack that depletes an enemy's Health by 10% per turn kills a powerful boss in 10 turns, a boss that is paralyzed is not a very fun fight, etc. On the other hand, you can kill most regular enemies quickly with direct damage, so why bother using status effects on them? Status effects are only worth using on bosses...who are immune to status effects. It's a dilemma.
Games get around this in a few ways. Generally every boss has a status effect that they're somewhat weak to, but not one that is game, set, and match for them. And in general, bosses are more vulnerable to debuffs than other status effects.
In general, my solution is to make bosses VERY VERY RESISTANT TO but not IMMUNE TO most status effects, including even the most fuck-you status effects. So if you keep casting Sleep or even Death on the boss you will eventually hit, although maybe only 10-20% of the time. To avoid player frustration, this works best in a system where attacks that inflict status effects also do at least SOME amount of damage.
Another alternative is to create two versions of a state. One for bosses, and one for other enemies. Other enemies are immune to the boss kind and susceptible to the regular kind; for bosses it's the reverse. The boss kind is a weaker version of the state in question. The best instance I can remember of doing this in my own games is with the "Deatomize" status effect you can inflict with your main character's ultimate skill in the RM2k game Iron Gaia: Where Angels Fear To Tread. Since this is an ultimate ability, and since it costs all of your Energy and almost all of your HEALTH to cast, it is pretty diesel. It rips apart regular enemies in ~3-4 turns by dealing either 33% or 25% of their HP per turn (I can't remember). Against bosses, it hits, but it only deals ~10% damage per turn, and it only lasts 3-5 turns, which is less of an instant-win but is still much, much better than default RM2K poison. (This a slightly more complex case, as all the state did at the time was act as a flag for battle events which did the necessary effects/damage.)
The only other project I did where I can remember doing this kind of status effect doubling is in Deeper, the aborted VX community project I tried to start.
Anyway, I think this is exactly what Craze means by poisoning him "a little bit".
P.S.
I think a cool boss would be one who is immune to all direct damage and can only be killed BY being poisoned. That's just me, though.
P.P.S.
The other thing that is (slightly) different is that status-effects are quite enemy-specific because most skills (that aren't direct-damage based) will only effect either organic or mechanical* enemies. You can "Poison" a human but you can't "Poison" a machine, you have to make it "Bugged". You can "Shut-Down" a machine but you can't "Shut-Down" a human, you have to put them to "Sleep".
Respect, I try to do this in my games as well.
P.P.P.S. (I like this topic)
Another solution is to not have just "bosses" and "non-bosses" but to have enemies in between (not mini-bosses, more elite mooks, like the elite monsters in D&D 4E) who are dangerous/durable enough to require status effects but do not have any special resistance to them. These kinds of enemies give status magic more cache.
Yeah, in D&D 4e, you can inflict states on an Elite/Solo, but they'll only generally last for a single turn.
I don't know what level of play you're talking out. (My only experience of D&D 4E play is only through the seventh level, where Elites at least did not get a lot of special resistance to status effects. They had better Defenses but weren't particularly better at saving to end. Solos may be a different story but then again another thing about D&D 4E is that states aren't generally that deadly.)
